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Templeton Press (original UK publisher Bantam-Transworld)

Foreign Editions: Germany, Poland, Netherlands

After the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, many people assumed that science and belief in God are irreconcilable. Yet even now, a century and a half later, with stunning advances in physics, biology and the fields of chaos and complexity, scientists themselves are divided as to whether belief in God can sit comfortably alongside scientific knowledge.

This is not a question only for scientists, philosophers, and intellectuals. What can any of us know, and what remains unexplained, perhaps unexplainable? Can we find God . . . or a scientific theory that will erase the notion of God? Can even human reason that goes far beyond present science ever hope to answer the ultimate questions, or must the answers lie partly in imagination, poetry and metaphor, or come from evidence unavailable to science?

I wrote The Fire in the Equations as a journey of exploration, not knowing where the journey would take me or where it would end. My present views on science-religion issues were not in place when I began the book. They were forged in the writing of it. If you are surprised at some of the twists in the line of argument, so was I. This was no attempt to discover or forge reconciliation between science and religion.

My exploration was not even based on the assumption that reconciliation is lacking or needed. I thought the best approach was to go determinedly to those areas where the heart of the conflict was reputed to lie, and find out for myself whether the reputation was correct.

I invite you to join me on this adventure through science, philosophy, theology, and grass-roots belief, and draw your own conclusions from arguments and evidence I have presented as fairly, straight-forwardly, simply and accurately as I know how. I will not tell you what to decide.

"A clear account of the ultimate question."Stephen Hawking

"Beautifully and intelligently written, reporting on some of the intellectual tremors jolting the world of thinking women and men, but also considering the basic questions with penetrating analysis, yet at a very readable level . . . An excellent book."Choice

"A definitive work encapsulating the arguments on science, religion and the search for God . . . The Fire in the Equations is a rare one with no axe to grind."Cambridge Evening News

"A delightful, up-to-date and accurate account of the most active frontiers of physical science in language equally pleasant to read at age thirteen or eighty-three, laced with puzzles, poems, people and science and much of the delicious accompaniment that goes on in the search."John Archibald Wheeler, Joseph Henry Professor of Physics. Princeton University

Article: "Letter to Caitlin," published as "What I Want My Teenager to Know about the God/Science Debate" in Russell Stannard, ed., God for the 21st Century, Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2000